Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options
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There are loads of backup systems for handling backup to cloud or to a service with a central management and monitoring console that will tell you how much space is used, if backups are successful, etc. But finding the same kind of mechanism for local backups is pretty hard to find. What are people using or what have you looked at?
The scenario is simple.... loads of customers, and local backups. Cloud backups are great, but not as a substitute for high speed, local cost local storage (generally either a NAS or a USB drive.) Need a simple solution to a simple problem, but with central visibility to make monitoring the whole thing easy and fast.
Edit to make more clear:
The requirements are...
- That the data does not leave the network (or does so only optionally)... assume dial up bandwidth.
- That there be central monitoring and control so that failures can be viewed in nearly real time. And successes.
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By local backups, are you saying as in locally attached disks to each workstation / server and not a shared on-prem backup repo?
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@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
By local backups, are you saying as in locally attached disks to each workstation / server and not a shared on-prem backup repo?
Both is best. But ability to handle locally attached (e.g. USB external drive) is critical. If can handle NAS too, is even better.
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So the problem I see with this is you are wanting to have a centrally house backup and management web page, to backup, restore and monitor hundreds of clients.
This would mean something that is hosted publicly, accessing hundreds of clients internal networks, and then have some additional inroads to some mounted volume with that client network (times hundreds) to read and write data too.
How could that go wrong?!
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
So the problem I see with this is you are wanting to have a centrally house backup and management web page, to backup, restore and monitor hundreds of clients.
That's a common thing that nearly every vendor offers. It's the local repositories, not the centrally houses management page, that is the issue.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
This would mean something that is hosted publicly, accessing hundreds of clients internal networks, and then have some additional inroads to some mounted volume with that client network (times hundreds) to read and write data too.
How could that go wrong?!That's how basically all backup vendors work. Veeam, Backblaze, Crashplan, Altaro, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
So the problem I see with this is you are wanting to have a centrally house backup and management web page, to backup, restore and monitor hundreds of clients.
That's a common thing that nearly every vendor offers. It's the local repositories, not the centrally houses management page, that is the issue.
Local repo's with a locally installed piece of software that copies to a cloud provider. Not a centrally managed interface which reaches into the client network.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Not a centrally managed interface which reaches into the client network.
No, this is the piece that they all have. Talked to Veeam about their offering just this morning.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Local repo's with a locally installed piece of software that copies to a cloud provider.
But lack a working "final target" locally. So they do ALL the part that you are worried about.
Veeam does it all, but requires a full Windows Server additionally locally. It has ALL the parts we need, just requires a lot of infrastructure.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Not a centrally managed interface which reaches into the client network.
No, this is the piece that they all have.
Veeam (afaik) requires a system on-premise to run and manage the backups (which can be saved locally and to the cloud as well).
Nothing is cloud managed from an IT perspective, you don't setup, backup or restore from a cloud interface. It's all locally operated.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
@Obsolesce said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
By local backups, are you saying as in locally attached disks to each workstation / server and not a shared on-prem backup repo?
Both is best. But ability to handle locally attached (e.g. USB external drive) is critical. If can handle NAS too, is even better.
Hmm, not sure about that one. I've never come across that specific need to require locally attached USB disks in with the backup solution's DB. Those were always adhoc and done via Veeam Free (or Windows Backup) and not managed, just scheduled with email notifications set for failures. But always pushed for no local backup, and to use modern means of working file storage (ODfB, Google Drive File Stream / Backup and Sync, etc).
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I think the biggest issue you're attempting to address @scottalanmiller is to have some hundreds or thousands of clients reach out to something on Vultr for example, and having whatever that is reach back into each of those disperse networks and write things to something on premise.
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As an MSP I would think you would feel much better about having standalone systems for each of your clients, this way there is 0 risk of one massive failure domain affecting every one of your clients.
Potentially ransomware'ing all of them in one full swoop.
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Is NTG wanting to be the next PROtek support, because this is what it sounds like you're looking to do @scottalanmiller !
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
I think the biggest issue you're attempting to address @scottalanmiller is to have some hundreds or thousands of clients reach out to something on Vultr for example, and having whatever that is reach back into each of those disperse networks and write things to something on premise.
Like I say, though, same as every major backup mechanism. They all do this. All. This is actually way, way safer because only status, not data, is being moved outside of the network. All of the ones that I can find do this PLUS move data from onsite to offsite, too.
So like a bazillion times safer only doing local data without any remote from a security perspective.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
As an MSP I would think you would feel much better about having standalone systems for each of your clients, this way there is 0 risk of one massive failure domain affecting every one of your clients.
Potentially ransomware'ing all of them in one full swoop.
That's similar to the logic that you'd have separate backups for every desktop, rather than a central backup system for all desktops. Sounds good, but it's not affordable. Clients won't pay for that kind of high touch service. It would be great, because as an MSP you make a fortune for things like that. 15-30 minutes of "logging in to look at your backups" every morning, for every client, adds up quickly.
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
Is NTG wanting to be the next PROtek support, because this is what it sounds like you're looking to do @scottalanmiller !
You seem to be missing that every backup vendor on the planet pretty much does this, but way riskier. The entire market. All of it.
And it's not for NTG.
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@scottalanmiller said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
All of the ones that I can find do this PLUS move data from onsite to offsite, too.
The issue is the tool you mentioned to me offline, requires that the data reach the server, and is then written to whatever storage is locally mapped.
So the data has to stream out to the VPS, and then back in to whatever storage.
Where as the simple and "cost-effective" system would be to just have each of this separate systems send in an email once a day or week as the backups finish so you as an MSP can manage it.
It keeps the data local ( a critical key for any customer ) as "Backups always need to be local, for any business. Cloud backups are almost always a fallback scenario".
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@DustinB3403 said in Centrally Controlled Local Backup System Options:
The issue is the tool you mentioned to me offline, requires that the data reach the server, and is then written to whatever storage is locally mapped.
Right, which is why that's only mentioned as "not an option." The need is for that not to happen, hence why there is a thread on this, not on that.
